What was the attraction with Polaroid film?

<p>Here are three photos (not mine), the first digital, the second regular film and the third Polaroid film. I'd

like to ask something I've often wondered about... What on Earth is/was the attraction with Polaroid film?!</p>

 

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If you don't already understand then you have no

need to know. :)

<p>Colin -- instant gratification, sharing or gifting with photos at the moment after they were taken. With professional Polaroid films and backs , confirming outcomes and taking test shots on expensive photoshoots. Taking photos one might not care to have processed. Not a great deal different than cell phone images.</p>

Your first posted sample is really beautiful work. I suspect there is a certain Polaroid "look" that attracts people. For the

life of me, I can't understand what it is.

<p>It was attractive for the same reason that digital photos on cellphones and Facebook are now.<br>

It was also popular with people who were "bad" at photography, they could see if they botched the photo immediately. Of course, with the <em>always</em> high price of Polaroid film, it became very speedy if you weren't competent.<br>

I remember vacations in the early 1970's where the trash cans at parks were FULL of the discarded negatives from Polaroid pack film.</p>

<p>The advantage of Polaroid for a professional was that you could chimp: rather than waiting at least hours to see if you had got the lighting right you could see an image immediately. That must have revolutionised studio photography.</p>

<p>For an amateur or for home use it was also being able to get an image instantly, which I hear people like to be able to do, although in this case it was more often the final product than a prequel to it.</p>

<p>Polaroid film was a new creation of Edward Land, giving people, for the first time, an opportunity to snap a photo and within moments have a print in hand. Further, most of the Polaroid cameras were virtually not much different in learning how to use than other point & shoot cameras of the day...some had adjustable focus, some had rudimentary diaphragm adjustments, but even the lowliest human being could use them to get an "instant picture". Unfortunately, many of the images faded at a rate much faster than standard drug store prints....so there was that instant recognition of a Polaroid print shortly after it had been produced. They also attracted pros, as mentioned above. I still have a couple of Polaroid shots taken in the 1950s which have been stored in light tight boxes, and the colors are still pretty good.</p>

<p>Polaroid had several uses back in film days. First off it was used as an exposure test for commercial photoshoots. Soon however photographers found that it had a look unique to itself it was fast and impressionistic muting colors and blurring edges sometimes. Also, you could separate the negative part of the film away from the rest, wash it, and make contact prints. So it became an artistic medium in its own right. Its quick use and quirky reactions came to form an aesthetic all its own. </p>

<p>The above also leaves out for consumers it was a fun "instantaneous" way of taking photographs for the whole family. Or for just walking around etc. Forinstance, Polaroid made polaroid cameras, some of them were descent. But a lot of commercial photographs would use polaroid where it worked in various camera backs like Hasselblad. I don't recall if they made if for some sizes of view camera. But often, medium format cameras were used in studio and polaroids let users check their lighting systems and exposure strength and ratios.</p>

<p>We used Type 52 as insurance in case the film pack negative failed for some reason. Also, that film had a tonal range that was impossible to get on still surviving films. One reason that Ansel Adams used it.</p>

T-52 was the most spectacular of all B&W Polaroid

films!

T-52 was a spectacular B&W medium.

<p>With the ability to instantly see a picture on a video screen, the use of instant photography is not so obvious today. </p>

<p>Personally, I never had a Polaroid camera back in those days. For industrial use, they had for years some special uses. Insurance estimators used them to take pictures of the damage, to arrange for insurance payments. Another favorite use for many years, was for passport pictures.</p>

<p>A favorite story from my father, a professional photographer was sent to take his picture in an unusual (not studio) situation, with unusual lighting. The first one came out black. The second way over exposed. It was used in place of a light meter, with no idea of the actual exposure. I believe that was type 58, 4x5 Polacolor. </p>

<p>The above are cases where the economics of the more expensive print are balanced out. If a professional gets results faster, that saves money.</p>

<p>Less obvious is personal use. For vacation pictures, most of us can wait until we get home. With practice, with light meters, we get close enough, often enough. Not that we waste film, but for a long vacation trip, you might have many places to photograph. In high school for a month in Europe, my father bought me three rolls of High Speed Ektachrome. </p>

<p>For those with less patience, Polaroid might have been a good choice.</p>

<p>Goodness people don't you know? It was used for taking sexy shots and nudes at home. </p>

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<p>It was used for taking sexy shots and nudes at home.<br>

</p>

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<p>Oh, I forgot about that one. </p>

<p>The digital shot is clinical, the film shot is mis-developed (too yellow) and the Polaroid (which isn't Polaroid film, btw) is beautiful and unique. (It's Impossible Project film, hence the transferred fingerprints. IP is getting better, but isn't "there" yet.)</p>

<p>Going back twenty years ago I recall photographing with Charlie Waite and him using Polaroid pretty much habitually to test exposure prior to shooting MF Velvia on his Hasselblad. I never did it - for all sorts of reasons- preferred to invest in a great meter rather than carry another back and film stock- but it certainly worked well enough for him. I wasn't really aware that people might use it to take real photographs then. </p>

<p>Les - I'm authentically interested in what makes the Polaroid "beautiful" to you. I just am not able to see it. </p>

I'm with Howard. I don't think I've ever seen the lo-fi look of a Polaroid and been impressed. Except maybe one of those 20x24" Polaroids in a museum.

 

Barry Fisher mentions something intriguing when he says that "it had a look unique to itself it was fast and impressionistic muting colors and blurring edges sometimes", but still, I don't see the appeal.

 

Most replies here have mentioned its selling points from decades ago, as an exposure test or for otherwise unobtainable instant results. But what I'm really wondering about is why anyone lamented its passing in recent years when it was discontinued. To put it bluntly, Polaroid film just gives crap results every time. I'd genuinely love if someone could show me some results that would change my mind.

 

By the way, Les, it says on the Flickr page that the Polaroid image was shot with "Polaroid 600 film". You're more familiar with it than I am, but that's not Impossible Project film I think.

<p>I would agree that there were a lot of bad Polaroids made, but the B&W Type 52 and Type 54 could make good prints since they were made with decent 4x5 cameras and lenses by professionals for the most part. I did't care much for the early color materials either, but the Type 689 (and the Fuji FPC 100 equivalent) also made good prints with fairly accurate color in my experience. It is a different "look" from current digital technology, and whether it is better or not depends on the photographer and his/her intentions. I am always sorry to see a particular material or technology disappear since someone may come along with a good idea that would be best carried out with a now non-existent medium.</p>

At the Christmas office party I would take photos with my Speed Graphic and 545 Polaroid back using 55 Polaroid film. That provided both a positive and a negative. I would post the positives on the office board and take the negatives home to make 8x10 glossies of the better shots in case people wanted those. "Er, Jim, about that photo of me and Miss Fishbaine ..."

 

Ansel Adams was quite taken with Polaroid and published a book "Polaroid Land Photography". He believed that properly used, Polaroid images may possess beautiful tonal qualities not possible with other processes.

<p>Type 52 had many of the qualities of tonal range of the "printing out" papers. Great shadow detail and avoiding blowing out the highlights. Digital processing of a scan from Type 52 would extend the range even more.<br>

If they still made Type 52, I'd still have a 4x5 camera.</p><div></div>

<p>As pointed out above, there were different types of Polaroid. If you wanted a really technically briliant, intimate (and unique!) print, then you used large format and Type 52 film. You absolutely could make art with that--and many people did.</p>

<p>I actually really like the Polaroid print you linked above better than the other two--but it's a different beast altogether. It's akin to the results you'd get from an SX-70. Those weren't meant to produce total technical fidelity to reality, and the flaws, vague focus and muted colors added an interesting character--and maybe even a hint of mystery--that are lacking from the technically perfect digital image of the same scene/person. And the immediacy of the printed image had its own attractions!</p>

<p>I once used someone else's studio, and they had a wall covered with SX-70 prints of several years' worth of clients and friends, many of which the subjects had written on. I actually found them fascinating, and spent quite a bit of time poring over them. And if you can find a copy of a book (one of my favorites) by Ben Watts called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Up-Ben-Watts/dp/1568984529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481596827&sr=8-1&keywords=ben+watts+big+up"><em>Big Up</em></a>, you'll see how instant film could create an immediate connection between the photographer and the people he was shooting that encouraged them to reveal more of their personality, and to be generally more open to being photographed. </p>

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<p> To put it bluntly, Polaroid film just gives crap results every time.</p>

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<p> <br>

That's your opinion. Nothing makes it universal.<br>

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I used it for Polaroid transfers. Can't make them without starting from a Polaroid.</p>

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<p>Les - I'm authentically interested in what makes the Polaroid "beautiful" to you. I just am not able to see it.<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If you can't see beyond what is popularly (and mistakenly) called "IQ" (image quality) then things like resolution and color "accuracy" become paramount. What the Polaroid, among other media, can do is eliminate those distractions and let you make a more immediate emotional connection. It takes the viewer beyond "bright clear pictures" which are nothing but bright and clear, but have no content. In the words of Dorothy Parker, there's no <em>there</em> there.<br /><br />Beautiful pictures can, of course, be taken with any media, just as beautiful paintings can run from Van Gogh to Seurat, to the photo-realists, to Sargent and Holbein.</p>